Alexandria, Egypt, December 17, 2009.

Nadine was lying on her bed listening to her favorite songs and thinking about her life. Deep breaths were taken; annoying thoughts crawled back to her. Captivated, grounded, and trapped in a terrible play. Asking herself every day why she couldn’t just disappear.

A daydream where she could leave everything behind and simply vanish. With every day passing, an unreasonable aching feeling crawled into her soul slowly, leading her to lose all sense of reality.

She finds herself dragged into these dreams that feel more real and believable than her own real life. For the past eight years, one weird dream was a regular visitor. She couldn’t recall it fully, yet she vividly remembered how it felt every time she had one.

She sighed and looked at the ceiling, defeated. The daily yearning began. It was towards something, or rather someone she doesn’t know or remember.

Or yet to remember.

The new song plays into her ears. Incredibly emotional lyrics and a singer’s voice from the heavens; clear and dominant yet soft and heartwarming. She knew every word and memorized every sound in it. The song had a spark within her soul. It was like the starter engine of her weird dream. The beginning of her escape.

She discovered the song seven years ago. The only one ever created by that singer’s angelic voice. The music industry and fans went insane, wanting to know the identity of its creator yet no luck. Even after long seven years, the identity of the famous unknown singer was still unsolved.

His deep and calming voice always put Nadine on cloud nine. His voice felt familiar and close to her heart. Every word felt drawn to her. Her favorite moment of her day, letting go of the stress, her life and simply drifting away with the song.

Every time she feels somehow carried away from her body into a magical light one. Feeling her soul floating through the air. Alive and free.

Feels real, too real.

The realism of her feelings got to her, scaring her to the core. She opened her eyes swiftly, confirming how she felt. She was floating in the air and right above her body. She blinked and watched herself closely, looked foreign and not real.

Nadine moved away and reached the floor to stand. Walked toward the mirror. She didn’t see her reflection or any other reflections. She saw a golden halo inside the mirror. Nadine felt a powerful urge to touch it. She looked at her hand and slowly reached to touch the halo, feeling attached to whatever was behind.

A memory, familiar and safe. Like taking the first step on memory lane. The so-called dream always stopped at this moment; with her about to touch the mirror and never knew what was behind. Yet this time was different. It felt real and not a dream anymore.

She followed her instincts. The golden halo flickered when she touched it and quickly spread all over. She looked back at her body and saw the halo slowly covering and swallowing it whole.

She found herself in a golden, luminous void that slowly transformed into a defined room. It looked familiar and nostalgic. A hypostyle one with a massive golden circle table in the middle and ten golden chairs.

Nadine was standing at the far end of the room. Golden wisps flew from above her head toward the chairs and then transformed into ten strained men. In the middle of the table were hundreds of papyruses and books. One man stood up and started walking back and forth with his hands over his waist.

He was talking in a low tone that Nadine couldn’t hear from where she was standing. She walked toward them, stood behind one chair, and eyed each one carefully.

They were all wearing long white linen shendyt with golden belts and long-sleeved tunics. Some wore plain silver neck collars and others wore gemstones golden ones. Most of them were bald and with clean-shaved beards. They all shared similar clothes, yet each was weirdly different from the other. They were like all belonged to the same culture but from different time eras.